Bad Dreams
by Mochirella
Summary: About one week before Isabella Swan moves to Forks, she starts having dreams. Strange dreams. Should she trust the bad feeling that bubbles up when she meets the Cullen family or will Edward still manage to bedazzle her? And what is Charlie trying to hide from her?
1. Arrival

**1\. Arrival**

 _The trees are flying by as I'm racing down the highway.  
'I'm near', I think, pleased. 'And when I find them, I'm finally gonna kill them!'_

I woke up to the sound of shattering glass. Immediately, I put my hand under my pillow and scanned my surroundings. My heart was racing and adrenaline was rushing through my veins.  
Then I stopped.  
What the heck was I doing? Why was my first reaction to a loud noise to try and grab a weapon? And why did my brain assume I had a weapon near me? Especially underneath my pillow!  
No matter how many times I woke up like this, my body's natural reactions still surprised and also greatly confused me.  
This dream was one I had had multiple times in the last two or three weeks.  
It was always the same one, too. Sometimes the scenery that was rushing by the car windows changed from the desert to a forest or to an abandoned town, but the rest, the violent thoughts and the interior of the car always stayed the same.  
Right now, though, I had better things to do than ponder over a silly recurring dream. And the shattering glass was nothing to worry about, either, Mom had probably smashed something while storing the dishes into the cupboard.  
That thought instantly made me feel a bit sad. I knew I would miss my mom a lot. Today was the day I would be moving in with my dad so that Mom could be happy traveling with Phil. She had told me that it wasn't necessary, but I wanted to do this for her, since she never really had the opportunity to travel around without me to worry about.  
Being a single mom was a full time job and now that I was almost an adult, I wanted to give her back some of her freedom.  
She never had a honey moon vacation either, since Dad had already been working as a police officer in Forks by the time they got together and he couldn't take a lot of time off.

Apparently there had been a staggering amount of animal attacks during that time, even though Forks usually was one of the safest towns I knew.

Forks was a dull place, always cold and wet and far too green for my liking, but for some inexplicable reason I was excited to go. I didn't remember too much about the summers I used to spend there. There were some faces I could remember, like Billy Black from the rez, but since I always made it clear that I was forced to be there I had never really made friends in Forks.  
That wasn't too bad though, since it meant I could have a fresh start.

I fell asleep on the plane.  
My dream was different this time. Charlie, my dad, was there with me. That had never happened before. Usually, I was alone or with some dark, shadowy figures that gave off a dangerous vibe.  
We were sitting on small, uncomfortable beds in a cheap-looking motel room surrounded by tons of guns of various sizes, cleaning and reloading them.  
The weirdest thing was that I felt happy. I was sitting between weapons made to murder people and I was happier than I ever was, laughing at a joke Dad made.

Nowadays it was normal for me to be totally confused when I woke up. Usually this kind of dream was just me driving a car or running through a dark alley.  
Also, my dad and I weren't what you would call _close_ since I had always told him how I hated spending time with him in Forks.  
It only then dawned on me that my dad was supposed to be a cop and that he had been totally okay with him and me being buried in guns in that dream.  
Of course I knew that my dad was no stranger to handling guns, but I definitely was. The quiet confidence I had felt during that dream was honestly scaring me. What would need to happen for me to become so comfortable around guns?  
After this dream I also felt this strange pull when I thought about Dad, some sort of deep connection I had never felt before.  
I didn't even have to remind myself not to call him Charlie anymore.

Considering my usual clumsiness, I had expected to stumble out of the plane, like I always did, but strangely I didn't even trip once.  
Come to think of it, my clumsiness had almost disappeared over the last two weeks or so...  
Since the dreams started.

That was something I would have to test more thoroughly later. Did this mean I would not have to constantly embarrass myself during gym class anymore? I really hoped it did, because I actually enjoyed working out. I had attended some of Mom's yoga classes and they had been really great. Yoga was surprisingly exhausting if you did it right.

Dad was excited to see me, but obviously very surprised when I initiated a hug.  
We both usually weren't comfortable with general touching, but at that moment it just felt right.

The ride home was a bit awkward, just like I had imagined.  
But then, Dad told me about the car he had found for me, a Chevy truck.  
The car I drove in my dreams was a Chevy truck, I remembered. That was enough for me to already love the car, without even having seen it.

For some reasons, stats about the truck were running through my head, as well as tips on how to fix cars.

At first I thought Dad was telling me these things, because the voice certainly sounded a lot like his, but when I looked over, his lips weren't moving.  
That was weird.

Dad's house still looked exactly the same.  
He hadn't changed my room much, only added a bigger bed and an old computer. That would be the first thing to go, I thought... This computer looked like it belonged in the Stone Age! The room itself was fine for now, though I wanted to remodel a bit if I planned to stay here longer.

The first thing I did after unpacking all of my stuff was take a shower, afterwards I sat down on my bed.  
Honestly speaking, I had expected to feel miserable. Obviously, I already missed Mom, but the urge to cry that I had been waiting for simply didn't come.  
Instead, I was itching to take my new baby out for a ride. But where to?  
Maybe I could pay Billy Black a visit and thank him for the truck.

Dad thought that was a great idea and immediately called Billy.  
We got invited over for dinner.

The truck didn't run quite as smoothly as I was used to from my dreams and the color was wrong, but I was confident I could fix it.

Billy welcomed me like a long-lost daughter, which seemed strange to me at first, because I hardly remembered him, but then again I had spent a big part of my holidays in La Push.  
He told us that Jacob was the one who had actually fixed up the car, so he and I went outside while Dad and Billy watched a baseball game.

Holding a conversation with Jacob was pretty easy, once I ignored the fact that he was definitely trying to flirt with me. Besides the fact that he was most definitely not my type, he was also too young for my taste.  
I steered the topic towards cars and asked him about a few parts I knew I needed. He had everything in the garage and we started taking apart my baby.  
We were just finished when Dad came back out and said that we should be going.

Before we left, I had Jake promise me to help repaint the truck, because the washed out red really wasn't pretty to look at.

I didn't dream that night, probably because I was so exhausted. 

Dad wished me good luck on my first day of school, but I doubted that wish would come true. I might have started being less clumsy, but that didn't necessarily mean I had become any luckier. I'm also not what you would call a social person, I actually hated being around people, especially strangers, for long periods of time.  
My personal space bubble just couldn't handle it.

Finding the school was fairly easy, with Forks being not all that big to begin with.  
School itself was bearable. Most people just stared at me, a few were brave enough to talk to me.

Some seemed a bit intimidated by me, which I couldn't quite understand. I certainly didn't look threatening in my blue plaid shirt, slightly ripped jeans and black sneakers, did I?

Eric, Jessica and Mike were three of the people who had introduced themselves to me and, naturally, when lunch break came around, they dragged me along to their table.  
At least I got to sit next to Angela, a rather shy Latino girl, who was apparently the only person not interested in interrogating me.  
She started a conversation about the different subjects I had, warned me about some teacher's antics and so on.

That was when I first saw them.

Jessica had mentioned the Cullens briefly and there really was no mistaking them.

Five kids who all looked like they could be in college already.

They all were drop-dead gorgeous, especially the blonde girl.  
When I asked Angela about them, she told me their names, quietly enough that Jessica wouldn't hear us.  
Some of the names were a bit unusual, some could even be called old-fashioned.  
I was still looking at them when the bronze-haired one – was it Edward? - turned towards out table and glared at me. It was an annoyed, frustrated glare, which led me to believe that I was not the cause for his glare and just had the unfortunate luck to sit in his line of sight.

Our eyes met briefly, then he looked away.

That was when my brain short-circuited.  
They looked too beautiful to be human, they just sat there without touching their food and when the short-haired girl named Alice left, she moved incredibly fast.  
My brain was shouting at me: 'They _aren't human_! They're _dangerous_!'

I was shocked by my own thoughts. Why did I have such a violent response?  
They could just be very good-looking kids that apparently weren't hungry and could move very fast while still looking graceful.  
But something told me I was on to something.  
Trusting the bad feeling in my gut, I studied them a bit more closely.  
They seemed to behave like most other students, the blond one was the only one sitting very stiffly, as if he wasn't used to this environment. He probably wasn't.

They all had different hair colors, and they were too far away to make out their eye colors, but all of them had relatively dark eyes, most likely brown.

Lunch break was over and I walked to my next class with Angela.

God must hate me.

One of the Cullens was in my biology class – and next to him was the only empty seat available in the entire class room. Of course. I had to stop myself from snorting when I realized this.  
Maybe the other students also had a weird feeling around the Cullens and steered clear of them because of it.  
At least now I knew what color his eyes were. They were pitch black.  
' _Demon_ ' was what my brain supplied, but I knew that wasn't it. He was something else.  
It didn't even occur to me to think that I was going crazy, because _those things aren't real. Demons are creatures from fictional stories and mythology, they don't exist!  
_ Edward Cullen was glaring at me angrily, as if he was trying to burn a hole right through my skull. While half-paying attention to the teacher, I made a checklist in my mind of all the things that stood out to me.  
There were his eyes and the dark, bruise-like shadows underneath them.

His pale skin was even lighter than mine and I'm practically translucent.  
His old-fashioned name. Who the hell would name their child _Edward_? On the other hand, considering some celebrity babies, I thought that Edward was far from the worst thing parents could call their children.

He hadn't eaten anything at lunch.  
The fact that he didn't seem to be breathing.

He and his siblings seemed to purposefully distance themselves from the rest of the student body.  
And lastly, the coldness that radiated from him. Usually people were warm, they radiated heat, but I felt like I was sitting next to an ice block.  
Edward Cullen left the class room as soon as the bell rang and he also moved faster than I had thought possible.

That was another thing I had to add to the list. They were fast and graceful, and Edward definitely gave off a predatory feel.

Gym wasn't as bad as I had feared.  
Mainly because I didn't have to participate today, obviously.  
But I actually anticipated the next day, when I would be able to join the others.

I actually felt the urge to exercise nowadays and had even considered finding a gym in Port Angeles or maybe Seattle to go to in my free time.  
On the other hand, fixing the truck was a lot of hard work and I wanted to get that done first.

I didn't let the incident with the secretary ruin my day. Edward surely had a better reason to try and trade his biology class to another time.

After getting some groceries and making dinner for Dad and myself, I collapsed on my bed and fell asleep almost immediately, not even the slightest bit bothered by the constant sound of raindrops hitting the roof.


	2. Suspicions

**2\. Suspicions**

 _I was hunting something.  
Slowly, clutching a big knife in my left hand and a gun in the other I crawled through what seemed to be a large pipe. A sewer maybe?  
One thing I had noticed about these dreams was that I couldn't smell anything...  
There were faint footsteps behind me.  
Damn! Had someone followed me down here? I turned around swiftly, ready to shoot the stranger. But when I got a closer look, I realized this girl seemed familiar.  
She had dark hair and glasses, it was too dark to make out anything else, but I knew she was not going to kill me. She was on my side. She was my partner._

I woke up confused, as usual.  
I only ever had one dream featuring another person, and that was Charlie.  
Having theses dreams was strange enough in itself, but why did I have a feeling that they showed me the future?

They certainly weren't flashbacks, because I would remember crawling through a sewer.  
During breakfast, I was almost inclined to tell Charlie, but I quickly stopped myself. He wouldn't believe me, he would tell me I shouldn't watch so much tv or something similar. Looking at it from a rational standpoint, I had to admit that having dreams that showed my own future seemed a bit far-fetched.

The ride to school was filled with thoughts about the Cullens. I was both excited and very anxious about seeing them again.

Excited because I wanted to continue my observations, anxious because I was also very scared of what I would find out. 

I leardes that I shared more classes with the Cullens, even if it wasn't Edward. Two of them were in my advanced History class. The short haired girl, I believe her name was Alice, and the blond boy who seemed like he was constantly in a state of pain. What was his name again? Jaden? No, it was Jasper... I think.  
He was the one I was worried most about. The others may have perfected their roles as human high school students, but he seemed very uncomfortable during the entire class. Stiff.  
A few theories started to form in my head.  
Maybe he was freshly turned. Or he wasn't used to a lifestyle in which he had to pose as a human for longer than to lure in his victims.  
I actually hoped it was the second one, because my brain instantly listed the dangers a newly turned _anything_ would bring. Most young beings were a lot more unpredictable than older creatures because they just weren't used to their new life. They would be confused and acted like a caged animal. They would lash out at the smallest, most insignificant things.

I spent my lunch break with Angela again. She was the most helpful person I had ever met and promised to study with me for exams. Even though I wasn't stupid, I certainly wasn't a straight-A student and I needed all the tutoring I could get.  
But lunch also held a big disappointment. Edward Cullen was not sitting with his siblings and Angela had reliably told me that the Cullens and Hales _always_ sat together.  
So he was not in school.  
That raised a sticky question. Where did he go? Was he just sick or did he screw up his cover and had to bail? Was he currently killing some poor little human?  
The thought made me shudder. 

While walking to Biology, Angela agreed to come to Port Angeles with me to look for a new computer because she needed a new phone anyway and knew her way around town. With a new computer I could maybe even start researching the Cullens.  
There was a bookstore in Port Angeles as well, but most bookstores didn't have a wide variety of books on supernatural creatures that were not purely fiction.

Once again, I was sure that God hated me. No, he absolutely despised me.  
Only I would be able to play volleyball in school and break two of the fingers on my right hand simply by hitting the ball. Obviously that meant that I had to spend the rest of the day getting x-rays and other annoying things done, being poked and prodded by one doctor after another.  
Angela was in my Gym class so she had figured that we probably had to postpone our trip to a later date.

There was one good thing that came out of all of this, though.

I met Dr. Carlisle Cullen. He was a very polite man and an outstanding doctor, but there was something about him that made me wary.

One of my theories was now practically disproved. He most likely was not a vampire or else he would be the vampire with the best self-control I had ever met.  
Well, not that I had met many vampires in the past, anyway.  
Dad had told me Dr. Cullen was a surgeon, which meant he was confronted with blood on a daily basis.  
On second thought, that would also be an amazing cover, because who would ever suspect the doctor?  
After hearing his name I immediately thought of a way to steer this conversation towards his "children".  
"Oh, _you're_ Dr. Cullen? Some of your children are in my classes I think. Alice, Jasper and... um... Edward?" I ended on a question, pretending to not remember the name, then I muttered to myself: "Even though he wasn't in school today."

I was sure I had spoken quietly enough, but Dr. Cullen had heard me anyway, because he answered. "That is very nice. Yes, I believe they said something about having a new student in their classes. Edward is not in Forks at the moment, he had to travel to relatives of ours, up in Alaska."

 _Interesting...I mentally added enhanced hearing to the list._

I nodded and he dropped the topic, instead explaining to me how to take care of my broken fingers. Hah! I had broken enough limbs in my life to know what to do.

I was excused for the next day of school.

That left me with a ton of time on my hands so I turned on my ancient computer and started the research. When I looked up supernatural beings with black eyes, though, I had to stop for a second.  
Dr. Cullen's eyes hadn't been black. The best way to describe them would be dark honey, almost with a golden gleam to them.

Why were Carlisle Cullens eyes a different color? All of the children had dark eyes, didn't they? Alice had looked at me in History today and I could have sworn her eyes were either a very dark brown or black.

Could their eyes change color?

A small part of my mind still tried to convince me that there was nothing wrong with the Cullens, they just happened to look like gods and had weird eye colors.  
I felt ridiculous, looking up ways to kill a demon and a wendigo and all these other creatures and I almost started laughing at myself for believing in these horror stories, but I couldn't quite shake the feeling that the Cullens were hiding something. Something possibly quite dangerous.

I printed out a few pages of information and stored them in one of my old journals that I never used. I would probably write all of it in the actual journal once I could write again, but if I tried that now my chicken scratch would be harder to read than hieroglyphs.

Charlie was mother-henning me the entire day, even though I only had some minor fractures that didn't even need to be operated. I only had some tape and bandages on my two fingers and was told to go see a doctor again in a few days to change the bandages.

He had insisted on making dinner so that I could rest, but he was a terrible cook. So we ordered takeout, which I was totally fine with.  
Nowadays, I also felt like eating meat again, even though I had been a vegetarian for six years. Mostly because it just didn't taste good to me, to be honest, but now eating a steak somehow seemed like a great idea.  
These dreams were really messing with my head. Maybe I should also research these dreams and what they could possibly mean.

I went to go to bed fairly early, because pain medication always left me a bit drowsy, but sleep just wouldn't come.  
I saw flashes of black eyes glaring at me in anger. _Edward_.

There were gentler, golden eyes that still made me feel like a rabbit staring at a snake. _Carlisle_.

And all of a sudden, there were red eyes. It was a rich, dark red and the person was staring at me from the other end of a large, dark room. Who was that?

I was sure it was just all of the research that fueled my imagination. What other explanation could there be? Was I suddenly a psychic that could see the future? Was that even the future? Was I simply going insane?

This had to stop. I needed to talk to someone about this. About the dreams, the Cullens, everything.

Dad was not an option, he would believe I was going crazy or trying to find an excuse to leave him and go back to Phoenix.  
Then it hit me. _Angela_.

She was the obvious choice. Angela was a quiet girl that didn't ask too many questions and I felt like she would actually _listen_ to me.

Now I only needed a good opportunity.

Maybe God didn't hate me as much as I thought.

I remembered Angela's promise to visit me and bring me some of the work that I missed.  
She would be staying a while to explain school stuff to me anyways, I just had to manage to start talking about the Cullens in a casual way.  
If she wasn't freaked out by my comments on how _inhuman_ they seemed, I would share my theories with her. 


	3. Revelations

**3\. Revelations**

I woke up with a stabbing pain shooting through my ring finger and pinky.  
Oh well, it wasn't like that was an uncommon thing for me, anyway.  
I just popped in some painkillers and instantly felt better as the pain slowly but surely receded.

Dad had already gone to work, leaving me to bore myself to death until he returned.

Angela had said she would come over right after school.  
I wanted to be prepared for that conversation, so I threw myself into my research.

My preferred method of researching usually involved handwritten notes, but now I just printed out about a dozen pages, mostly about different kinds of spirits.  
About 20 minutes of my morning were spent searching for a stapler.  
Apparently I didn't own one and I couldn't find any kind of office supplies in the rest of the house.  
Maybe Dad had one in his room.

Standing in front of Dad's door, I hesitated.  
I had never seen my dad's room.  
When I was younger, I simply wouldn't leave my room, sulking until I could finally leave and see my mom again.  
It seemed silly to be afraid of entering my dad's room, now that I was an adult.

I pushed the door open – and stopped, looking around, curiously.  
What I saw definitely surprised me. Who knew my dad owned so many books.  
Stepping further into the room, I inspected the books a bit more closely.  
Then I realized something.  
I knew these books. I had stumbled upon these titles during my research! Why did my dad own a small private library about every supernatural creature possibly imaginable?

Was my dad some crazy person who believed in stupid horror stories?  
No, that wasn't like him. I also realized how hypocritical that previous thought sounded, considering I was using the exact same resources to find out the Cullens' secret. But if he had all these books about supernatural creatures, then maybe my theory about the Cullens wasn't so far-fetched after all.  
Should I ask Dad about his opinion regarding the Cullens?

If he actually believed me, I could even consider telling him about my dreams.

Speaking of dreams, I had been kind of disappointed that I hadn't dreamed anything this night.  
I still had to find out more about the girl in the Sewers!

Angela seemed a bit upset when she came over, so we sat down on my bed and I urged her to tell me. It felt like the right thing to do and I wanted to be a good friend and be there for Angela. She deserved to have someone who cared about her.

"It's nothing, really. I'm just being stupid.", she kept saying. Now Angela may be a shy, introverted person, but she definitely wasn't stupid. So I wasn't buying any of it.  
"You'll never believe me!", she then blurted out.  
"Why wouldn't I believe you?", I asked incredulous. "Come on, Angela. I wont laugh at you, okay?"  
"Okay. About one and a half weeks ago, I started having these weird dreams. You know, running through an alley at night. I had dreams like that before, being chased by someone.  
But this dream was different. I -"

"-was the hunter, not the prey.", I finished.  
Angela nodded.  
"And then I had this totally crazy dream that I was crawling through a sewer and there was this other girl there, but I couldn't reach her. And it was too dark to see her properly!"

Now I was really surprised. That certainly answered my question about the latest dream. 

I told her about my own dreams. When I described the one in the sewer, Angela gasped.

"That was you?"

But why would we dream about sneaking through the sewers together?

Anyway, now that I was absolutely sure Angela wouldn't call me crazy, I shared my suspicions about the Cullens with her.  
She had also noticed some strange things about them and because she had been living here longer, she had access to a bit more information than I did.  
While she said she wanted to stay as far away from the Cullens as possible, she promised to find out more about our dreams, especially after finding out that I had been having them for about two weeks longer than her and us starring in each others dreams.

Angela ended up leaving shortly before Dad came home.

Dinner consisted of Chinese takeout food and a couple of beers.  
Strangely, Dad was surprised, but didn't even try to stop me from drinking, even though I'm underage and he is the Chief of Police.

Now came the conversation I had almost feared. I wanted to ask Dad about the books in his room and about the Cullens.  
Hopefully I was right and he wouldn't stuff me in a padded cell. 

"Um... Dad", I started, still unsure on how to actually start this dreaded conversation.  
"What can you tell me about the Cullens?"

"Why?" Oh no, he looked suspiciously angry.  
"Well, Angela and I noticed some weird things about them, like their eyes changing color and stuff."  
There was still a fairly big part of my brain expecting him to start laughing and call the nearest shrink. 

But Dad got very serious all of a sudden.  
"How did you find out, Bells?"

Retelling the dreams became easier as I went on and on. I ended with adding that Angela was experiencing the same thing.

I also admitted that I had seen his books while looking for a stapler.  
He wasn't angry.  
The emotions on his face were hard to read. Dad seemed proud, sad and maybe a little bit disappointed at the same time.

Was that even possible? 

"See, Bells...  
What I'm going to tell you now can under no circumstances leave this room. If Angela truly has the same dreams, she is an exception.  
Yes, all of these supernatural creatures you heard about do actually exist.  
Yes, the Cullens are supernatural beings, but I will get to that later.  
I am what you call a Hunter – I fight and kill all of those ghosts and demons. Well, I used to. Now I'm basically a regular cop.  
Your mom knew about my career as well. That's why she left and tried to keep you away from me. She didn't want you ending up as some hell hound's chew toy. And that is not just an exaggeration, I've seen that happen to some very good friends of mine. I lived a dangerous life, Bella. Half of the time I barely made it out alive. Your dreams are hinting at a future in which you become a Hunter yourself. I can't tell you to stay away from such a life, it is your own choice, but please be careful, whatever your decision may be. If Angela is destined to become a Hunter as well, the two of you could team up. Having a partner is always a good idea.

Now, the Cullens are a different story.  
First of all, they are vampires.  
And, most importantly, they are not a threat."

It was really hard to take in that much information. It was probably the longest speech I had heard my dad speak, ever.

There was one thing that bugged me, though.  
"What do you mean with 'they are not a threat'? Vampires kill people, don't they? They drink blood!"

"Good, you picked up on the most important detail. Yes, Bells, the Cullens are peaceful. There are about a dozen different types of vampires out there. Most kinds drink the blood of humans to survive. The Cullens only drink animal blood. They call themselves vegetarians, of all things."

I stifled a laugh at the irony of it.

"You mentioned the changing eye colors. The eyes are very important. The type of vampires that the Cullens are have golden eyes when they are "vegetarians" and red eyes when they eat... let's say traditionally. Their eyes get darker the hungrier they get."

Most vampire stories featured them not being able to stand in sunlight, because it killed them. Angela had told me that the whole Cullen family always disappeared on hiking trips whenever the sun came out. But when I asked Dad, he started laughing really hard.

He only managed to squeeze out: "They sparkle in the sun!" And then burst into another fit of laughter.  
I joined him after imagining Edward and the other kids sparkling. It looked absolutely ridiculous.

Facing the vamps at school now seemed a lot less scary, with that image implanted in my head.

I quickly called Angela and told her about what Dad had said earlier.  
We shared a laugh about the sparkly vampires before we hung up.

I went to bed in a good mood, excited what the next day would bring and anxiously awaiting a new dream. 


End file.
